Canadian Firm Gave Libyan Rebels Surveillance Drone

Joining the posted submitter club, suasfan22 writes with a bit in Wired about the use of a drone by Libyan Rebels. From the article: "The Libyan revolutionaries are more of a band of enthusiastic amateurs than experienced soldiers. But it turns out the rebels have the kind of weaponry usually possessed by advanced militaries: their very own drone. Aeryon Labs, a Canadian defense firm, revealed on Tuesday that it had quietly provided the rebel forces with a teeny, tiny surveillance drone, called the Aeryon Scout. Small enough to fit into a backpack, the three-pound, four-rotor robot gave Libyan forces eyes in the sky independent of the Predators, Fire Scout surveillance copters and manned spy planes that NATO flew overhead. Don't worry, it's not armed."

Comments

Re:It was probably thought too rude to say no...

[Dr Caleb]

We are polite. Americans however confuse 'polite' with 'weak'. I don't understand why. As Churchill said, "If you must kill a man, it costs you nothing to be polite about it.".

Re:Okay can someone explain this to me?

[Chris Burke]

As I said I really have no problem taking him out with military action. He was a dangerous nut case. The problem I have is with not following the law. And I question the integrity of the "anti-war" movement as anything but partisan at this point.

Well I can only speak for myself, and I don't consider myself part of the "anti-war movement", but I was (and still am) a vocal critic of the Iraq War.

If the second Iraq War had been initiated in response to a popular uprising against Saddam and had consisted of advisers and air support instead of 150,000 U.S. troops occupying the country, then I would have been cautiously supportive. Then I would have believed that Iraq was a threat, not to the U.S. which was always ridiculous, but to its own people (and not just in the generic way that living under a dictator is dangerous).

Of course that ship had already sailed (and then sunk), which is why the Iraqi people weren't as happy to see us as one might have hoped.

So that, for me, is why the difference in reaction. It's not about partisanship... I also became cautiously pro-Afghan war when it became clear they were taking it seriously. Then Iraq came along and fucked that up besides being a clusterfuck of its own.

I'm not anti-war, I'm anti-stupid. :)